Stonehenge

Foi e continua a ser um local de culto. Mas os mistérios de Stonehenge vão sendo, aos poucos, revelados. As novas investigações na área sugerem que já seria um local de culto solar, cerca de 500 anos antes do que estava estimado e antes do monumento ter sido erigido. A importância do Sol também parece ter sido maior do que se pensava: detalhando os caminhos das procissões que aí decorriam e a localização de certos marcos, desvela-se um ritual que seguia os pontos altos do solstício - o nascer do Sol, o meio-dia e o pôr-do-Sol:

The ‘eureka moment’ came when the computer calculations revealed that the midway point (the noon point) on the route aligned directly with the centre of Stonehenge, which was precisely due south.

This realization that the sun hovering over the site of Stonehenge at its highest point in the year appears to have been of great importance to prehistoric people, is itself of potential significance. For it suggests that the site’s association with the veneration of the sun was perhaps even greater than previously realized. But the discovery of the Cursus pits, the discovery of the solar alignments and of the putative ‘processional’ route, reveals something else as well – something that could potentially turn the accepted chronology of the Stonehenge landscape on its head.

For decades, modern archaeology has held that Stonehenge was a relative latecomer to the area – and that the other large monument in that landscape – the Cursus – pre-dated it by up to 500 years.

However, the implication of the new evidence is that, in a sense, the story may have been the other way round, i.e. that the site of Stonehenge was sacred before the Cursus was built (...).

Unless the midday alignment is a pure coincidence (which is unlikely), it would imply that the Stonehenge site’s sacred status is at least 500 years older than previously thought (...). The Independent

Imagem: Wikipedia